


you CAN, however, arrest the pirate king

by grainjew



Series: there we were, the three of us (threads of crimson, silver, and gold) [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: M/M, Multi, hey why is this basically the first time ive ever written rayleigh fic i LOVE him, im a sucker for generational parallels which is probably why i like shonen so much lmao, like last time the romance is so minimal i may as well have marked it gen, roger isnt luffy but there.... sure are some similarities, two bros bein sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 04:15:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15040508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grainjew/pseuds/grainjew
Summary: “I’ll miss you, too, Captain,” said Rayleigh finally. “I wish…” He gestured, again, to the sea and the sky and the man he would overturn the world for. “I wish.”Roger and Rayleigh's last conversation.





	you CAN, however, arrest the pirate king

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fallingwish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallingwish/gifts).



> do you ever wanna be sad about two dead people and one alive person, who is also sad? well boy do i have the fic series for you!
> 
> this is built on the same base as "YOU CANT ARREST THE MAYOR!", the first part of this series, so all stuff you dont recognize from canon (which face it, is a decent amount, rouge gets like one panel of screentime) is probably in there somewhere

Some leagues from the outermost of the Polestar Islands, two of the most infamous men in the world floated on a nondescript little dinghy. There was a second, smaller dinghy attached behind it, empty except for some rations and two pairs of oars. The sun shone blinding overhead, and the wind was worryingly still.

Rayleigh laughed, the sound small against the vastness of the ocean. He gestured at Roger, the sky, the dinghies, the whole situation. “This remind you of anything?”

“Aaa,” said Roger, tapping that ridiculous mustache of his, “but Rouge was with us, last time.” He grinned. “Getting nostalgic, partner?”

“Well, it _is_ that sort of occasion,” said Rayleigh. “What else would I be doing, exactly?”

“Point, point,” laughed Roger, and Rayleigh watched almost greedily the way he moved, the way he threw his head back and leaned into the laughter with his whole body like there was nothing weighing him down.

And there _was_ nothing, that was the way Roger lived, and Rayleigh saw to what little his captain didn't catch.

“Another difference is I actually know how to navigate now,” noted Rayleigh, dryly, when Roger’s amusement started to fade.

“You could navigate from the moment I met you,” retorted his captain, childish as ever. “You’re _my_ navigator, after all.”

“No, I was just better than you and Rouge, which is a bar so low it may as well be in Impel Down.”

“I'm a bit better now!”

“Being able to ask Sea Kings for directions doesn't make you a more competent navigator, it makes you able to ask Sea Kings for directions.”

“Ehhhh,” answered Roger eloquently, sticking out his tongue.

A silence fell between them, soft and comfortable like old rope, broken only by the faint murmuring hiss of a developing breeze and the light splash of wavelets against the hull of the dinghies. Rayleigh stared at Roger, memorizing the small details of his appearance he had never spent much thought on.

“I'm going to meet Rouge,” said Roger, breaking the silence.

Rayleigh had known, vaguely, that had always been the plan, although the rest of the crew had not. They didn’t so much talk _about_ Rouge as talk _around_ her, like she was still on the ship and had just been avoiding them to get her accounting done.

Still, he felt the need to say: “You'll be painting a target on her.”

Roger shrugged, like the fact that she had never even been to Paradise was completely inconsequential. “She's Rouge. She can handle it.” He looked at Rayleigh. “And you know that, or are you still bitter about her staying in East Blue?”

“No!” said Rayleigh, because he wasn't, _really._

“Wait, no, you miss her, don't you,” said Roger, laughter in his voice again as he stared slyly at Rayleigh with those eyes that could take a person apart.

Rayleigh made a wordless noise and flicked his eyes to the sapphire-blue sky while Roger laughed at him some more. “Yes, Roger, of course I miss her,” admitted Rayleigh finally. “We've talked about this.” Well, actually, they hadn't _specifically_ , but it was understood, between them.

Was Roger trying to make sure he didn't blame her for their separation? That would be just like him, wanting to make sure all his people got along, and it would also be just as foolish as he liked to act. For all that Rayleigh's capacity for devotion was given wholly unto Roger, he held a place in his heart for her, and she for him, just as surely as they both did for their captain. And Rouge had been and would always be a Roger Pirate, Grand Line or no Grand Line.

Rayleigh sighed. Maybe he had needed to think that through, after all. That was Roger, always knowing what his crew needed before they did, even to the last, even when it was just him and Rayleigh left.

It was going to be a pain and a half, to get to Sabaody relatively undetected, especially without Roger's Voice to help cross the Calm Belt or Oro Jackson, resting as she was on the coasts of Raftel, to brave the stormiest seas with him. But seeing each of his crewmates to their homes as safe as they could be, and, more than that even, these last precious lonely moments with the only man he would ever call Captain, made any inconvenience worth the trouble.

He had never had Roger's uncanny luck, but perhaps he would see whether a dinghy could make it over Reverse Mountain intact and pay Crocus a visit.

“I’ll miss you, too, Captain,” said Rayleigh finally. “I wish…” He gestured, again, to the sea and the sky and the man he would overturn the world for. “I wish.”

_That you didn’t have to die, that you didn’t plan to let the Marines think they won, that you would stop being so selfish for once, stop thinking about my safety and let me stay with you until the end, that you and me and Rouge could be together again, that I could follow you to your dying-place and after, that I didn’t have to just let you go._

_That you didn’t_ have _to go._

Rayleigh leaned forward, or maybe fell, his face landing on Roger’s chest and the rest of him landing in a really awkward hug. In any case, Roger got the message and tugged him closer, tighter, until Rayleigh was leaning into him, digging his fingers into Roger’s back and surrounding himself with, sinking desperately into Roger’s presence and nearness and _aliveness_.

“Rouge said that if you absolutely had to go out, you were to do it with everyone around your deathbed,” Rayleigh pointed out, into Roger’s shirt. “What about that, huh?”

If these were to be his last moments with his captain, if this was all he he had left, the last he would be able to hold onto as he lived out Roger’s command to wait and stay alive, then.

The best he could do was carve this memory of everything Roger was into his mind, and keep hold of it like a drowning devil fruit user. This memory of his warmth, and his humanness, and his laughter, and his unstated all-encompassing possessive sort of love that he extended to everyone he valued but especially to Rouge, and especially to Rayleigh, who had been first. This memory of the Roger Rayleigh had called captain for more than thirty years, this memory of the Roger the world, too blind, would never know.

 _His_ captain, _his_ friend.

“Aaa, but Rayleigh,” said Roger, extricating himself with unusual care from Rayleigh’s grip and stepping carefully over to the other dinghy.

Rayleigh made a wordless noise of protest at the loss.

Roger untied the rope linking the two dinghies and picked up the oars.

He glanced over his shoulder, staring back at Rayleigh with an almost unbearable amount of pride and tenderness and love and sorrow writ large across his face. And then he grinned that familiar grin like the sun had come out, like all was right with the world, and said, with all the earnestness Rayleigh had ever heard from him and more: “I’m not going to die, partner.”

He dipped the oars into the ocean with a gentle splash, and rowed away.

"...not going to die, huh?" murmured Rayleigh, to the silence Roger left behind, as he dwindled to a black dot on the horizon. "Yeah, I'll drink to that."

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on tumblr or twitter @grainjew, i would love to talk to you !!!


End file.
